The Housewife
by worldtravellingfly
Summary: *Alternate Universe*, wherein Casey and Jane have never lost contact with each other after school. Also, stereotypes abound.


Summary: Alternate Universe, wherein Casey and Jane have never lost contact with each other after school. Also, stereotypes abound.

* * *

 _Rizzoli and Isles_ does not belong to me. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

\- 1 -

* * *

Casey grinned at the picture on his nighttable. It depicted a raven-haired woman, whose face beamed back at him.

"You're hopeless, man," Eligio informed him from the top bunk.

Which just earned him a pair of rolled eyes and a playful smirk.

"And you're jealous," Casey pointed out.

"Oh, come on. Of what exactly? I have the choice of ladies out there, while you are going home to Julia Child and your white picket-fence."

Casey snorted at the idea of Jane being compared to a pearl-wearing housewife who was so bored out of her mind that she started writing a cookbook. Scratch that, Jane in pearls was enough of an impossibility in real life. And her cooking?

There was a reason they'd had the lastet smoke-detectors installed in their apartment.

Between the two of them, it was Casey who cooked and cleaned and took care of the everyday running of the household more often than not when he was home. It was certainly not Jane.

He loved her to bits, but that woman left her clothes wherever she found the space, didn't clean up her empty take-out containers until they were in danger of attracting vermin, and the mere idea of a picket-fence, white or not, would have her break out in hives in no time flat.

"At least you haven't gotten around to starting on the kiddies yet," Sorley sighed, letting himself flop back on his bed. (The one under Eligio.)

"Regrets?" Eligio needled, like a bloodhound scenting injured prey.

"No, never. Ava is all I could have asked for, but sometimes it's nice to come home and just be a couple for a while if you catch my drift. Not possible with a little princess around," Sorley told the top bunk, unable to look at them.

Sorley was married too, with one daughter, and his relationship with his wife was occassionally tricky. To say the least. Despite that, Sorley was a good man, a good comrade, to have by your side in combat.

Casey shrugged, uncaring what the others thought of him. "We've decided that we're not ready for children yet. Besides, Jane wants me to be around more often when we do have little ones."

Which would entail either not re-enlisting after his current contract ran out or working for one of the agencies.

But that was still in the far off future.

"Evie wants the same," Sorley admitted.

Ah, apparently things were back to tense.

Casey shrugged. "You have to figure out your priorities and then decide what to do about them. I love Jane, but I'm not ready to quit. At least not yet. She respects that and doesn't pressure me into doing anything I don't want. Of course, I do the same for her."

He ran a hand through his hair, wondering for the n-th time how he'd gotten so lucky. Right, he'd seen her with Frankie, Tommy and some of his friends, taking care of them with her special brand of tough love. Subsequently, he'd gotten over his rather irrational fear of her, been asked out by her, and decided to hold onto her for as long as she would allow it.

"Casey, you back with us?" Eligio grinned at him. "Were you just thinking of the Stepford Wife? Or how best to escape her clutches?"

That just earned him another snort.

Sorely openly rolled his eyes at their teammate. "Dream on, Jesús. Casey's Jane is a perfect angel and he's being a good Catholic. He's never gonna get a divorce."

Casey thought that the absence of sarcasm from this conversation made it sound far more surreal than absolutely necessary. It was bad enough he was going to have nightmares of a zombified Jane who was into cooking and cleaning and white picket-fences now.

A shudder ran down his spine at the mere thought. No, thankee sir.

Jane was perfect the way she was. At least to him. And anyway, whose opinion, other than theirs, counted?

"I will have you know that Catholics do get divorced," he pointed out, trying to steer the conversation subtly away from that nightmare version of Jane.

Eligio dismissed that with the lazy wave of his hand. "As if. You're the one with the perfect wife, the perfect life, and probably also the perfect home."

Casey couldn't help but think back to the last time he'd come home; the apartment had looked like a disaster zone. There'd been stuff everywhere and Jane had looked all _proud,_ too, because she said she'd been cleaning. She hadn't managed to finish, but... Casey supposed it was the thought that counted.

"We're just," Sorely hesitated for a moment, "a little jealous. And curious as hell. Why the heck have you never introduced her to us? I thought she was supposed to be your arm candy at the ball last year?"

Casey sighed, not particularly bothered. "Something came up and she had to cancel, unfortunately. If you're lucky you're gonna meet her when we land tomorrow."

The second those words left his mouth, two things happend. First, both of his friends perked up simultaneously. Secondly, Casey realized he should have kept his trap shut.

Too late for that now.

"You're on," Eligio smirked, rubbing his hands theatrically.

Casey closed his eyes and shook his head. "Shut up and lights out. We're gonna need all our energy tomorrow."

* * *

oooo

* * *

The following day, Eligio and Sorely basically glued themselves to Casey's side. They didn't let him out of their sight, unless they didn't have any other choice.

Casey texted Jane: _Are you still okay with getting me from the airport? xo_

Within a few minutes, she replied: _Gonna do my best. Got a new case, sorry. Be safe. Love you._

He sighed, stuffing his phone back into one of his many pockets. Casey tried hard not to let himself feel the disappointment of possibly not seeing Jane first thing the plane landed.

They both had made their job choices with their eyes wide open, same with their relationship.

Catching a killer and protecting more innocent people from getting murdered and landing on Jane's table was much more important than her picking him up at the airport.

But still. He had allowed himself to hope. Just a little bit.

However, fortunately, Casey didn't have time to brood because they were scheduled to board in an hour and he wanted to conduct one last sweep of their room. Just to see if he had forgotten anything of importance.

Luckily, that was not the case.

Boarding and then the flight progressed as planned, no problems or surprises popped out of some pocket dimension. Naturally, his phone was shut off as long as he was on the plane.

So, he wasn't sure if Jane would make it or not.

Something Sorely and Eligio hadn't seemed prepared to accept, being under the misconception that Casey had just gotten cold feet and wanted to keep Jane all to himself after all.

As if she would ever allow that to happen.

A sizable crowd, consisting presumably of various family members and friends of the returning soldiers, greeted them in Arrivals. Cheers and cries rang out over the general din of a busy airport. People were hugging left, right, and center. More flags were waved than on Memorial Day, and there were entirely too many signs decorated with glitter for Casey's comfort.

His eyes flickered over the crowd, trying to figure out if Jane had made it or not. Since he couldn't find her, he assumed she'd sent Frankie in her stead and allowed his shoulders to slump a bit.

Not enough to be too noticeable.

Eligio clapped his shoulder. "Come on, let's look for Jane. She's gorgeous, and has a dark, curly mob of hair. Anything else we need to know?"

 _She'd break your nose if she ever heard you say that, but details_.

Casey sighed inwardly. There was no getting out of this. He didn't doubt that Eligio would go so far as follow him home, just to finally get the chance to meet Jane.

"She's actually pretty tall. Likely dressed in a black pantsuit. She seems to love them," he muttered absently, eyes again sweeping over the crowd.

Fortunately, the first families were beginning to leave, no doubt for greener pastures. Which cut down the number of people more and more.

Sorely was busy being smothered by his pig-tailed, four years old daughter. She was dressed in a pink tutu, which was liberally sprinkled with glitter. It unfortunately did not match the red t-shirt Ava was sporting, likely by force or bribery.

Casey's OCD tendencies did not agree with her outfit choices.

And then something caught his attention from the corner of his eye.

It was Jane. Dressed in her standard black pantsuit, combined with one of her countless five dollar shirts. (That way it would hurt less if she had to throw them away due to _contamination_.)

Aside from a tired smile, she was also sporting a _massive_ shiner. Which still seemed to be in its baby stage.

But Casey didn't give a fig about that. Jane had made it!

He strode over to her, unable to resist lifting her lithe body, and twirling her around for his own sick amusement. (As Jane later put it.)

Casey also couldn't resist kissing her to within an inch of her life, chasing her lips as much as possible without becoming utterly pathetic.

"Hi," he whispered against her mouth, eyes twinkling.

Jane rolled her eyes, but she was smiling more genuinely now. "Hi yourself."

Someone cleared their throat, forcing reality to reassert itself once more.

"Ah, yes. Jane meet my teammates. This is Lieutenant Eligio and that is Sergeant Sorely, his wife Evie, and their daughter Ava. Eligio, Sorely, this is my wife, Detective Jane Rizzoli. She works for the homicide division."

For a moment, it didn't seem as if anyone had heard what Casey had just said, too focused on staring at Jane. Or more accurately, her shiner.

The couple exchanged a quick look, unsure what to do about this.

Of course, Jane saved him. Again. "Oh, you should see the other guy. I may or may not have had to break his nose. As-," her eyes fell on Ava and she hastily corrected herself, "k my colleagues. A real piece of work, that one."

"Nice save there," Casey muttered into her ear. His arm was still slung across her shoulders, unable to let go of her just yet.

"It's an honor to meet you, Detective. Casey has been telling us so much about you," here Sorely sent a discreet glare at said officer, "and we were disappointed not to see you at the ball last year."

Jane shrugged, although that wasn't exactly made easier by her husband's closeness.

"A rather artsy serial killer decided to grace us with his work," she told the motely crew assembled in front of them.

"It's nice to meet you," Evie said, after a subtle elbow from Sorely. She even added a smile, which lacked all of the sincerity Jane was due.

Ava was still staring at his detective wife, mouth dropped a little open. "Are you a hero?"

For the first time, Jane looked completely uncomfortable with the company or the conversation. "I'm just doing my job."

Eligio snorted, his eyes having regained their mischievous twinkle. "You're certainly not what we expected."

Jane raised an eyebrow in question at him. "Oh?"

"Your husband praised you to high heaven, you see. We were expecting a perfect angel, not a detective. Please excuse our bad manners as we readjust our world view."

Casey snorted, rolling his eyes at the other officer. "Says the Messiah himself."

"What lies have you been telling them, dear?" Jane asked with a sweet smile that Casey knew was about as sincere as Evie's.

"No lies. I may have omitted that you're a detective, but the rest is all on them," he grinned at her. "Just imagine, they thought you were the next Julia Child."

That managed to elicit another snort from her, the tension vanishing from her slender frame.

"You didn't correct that misapprehension?"

He shrugged halfheartedly. "They wouldn't have believed me."

Evie startled them back into reality this time. "It was wonderful to finally meet you, Detective, but we should leave now. Traffic is horrendous."

And so, one after another, the rest of the group left.

Casey's grin morphed into a genuine smile. "What do you say about finishing what we started earlier, back at home?"

Jane couldn't find any reason to deny him, so off they went.

* * *

By the by, I love writing for this pairing and I won't stop because 99% of the R&I fandom consists of Maura/Jane fics and people want to keep it that way. If you don't like Jane together with Casey, which is canon by the way, then simply don't read my stories. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and I ask that you respect that.

Please note: I am going to delete any flames ASAP. They're just fueling my spite(TM) and keep me warm in the winter.


End file.
